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Comment by Afforess | Hacker News Reader

Predicting recessions is easy. Economists have predicted 18 of the last 4 recessions.

This old saw might seem clever, but we have a central bank and a government working to make every one of those 18 predictions false.

And have borrowed immensely from the future generations for this. The bill will come due sometime, and some future generation would finally have to pay it up.

> some future generation would finally have to pay it up

To whom? The past?

Future generations inherit whatever is produced in the present. If you want to run with with the present-vs-future generations metaphor, maybe include that the present generation will gift everything they have to the future generation. Spending money to improve things today is an investment in the future as well.

Not everything is wealth. A lot of GDP is consumption which is depreciating assets that disappear.

I would be happier if my future income isn't taxed to gift to the wealth of the currently rich. And this extra wealth of currently rich is definitely never getting taxed enough to get it back into the working class hands.

We have gone so far into capitalism that not only we take from labor to give to capital owners, we have started taking from future labor to give to current capital owners.

We have gone far into the metaphor. I think you're mixing up the issue of destructive consumption (destruction of resources that future people cannot inherit and use) with growth in differential control of resources between capital owners and those without capital.

I upvoted because I sympathise with your view, although I think you portray it using a metaphor that's more of an appeal to emotions than setting out solid principles.

My take on it is we are setting up future labour to be increasingly indentured to future capital, due to obligation structures being cultivated in the present that have long-lasting structural consequences. Of which the widespread housing crisis may be the most obvious to ordinary people, for now.

That's not new. It is in fact what capitalism is all about. It wouldn't be called capital if there wasn't some kind of long-lasting obligation structure. To an extent it works rather well to collectively enrich. However, it can get out of hand.

I agree that we should complain about the scale of it and be concerned about hegemony and corporatism taking over the world. I favour keeping with "We hold these truths to be self-evident" and human rights near the top of the values scale.

If there's one thing Economists are amazingly bad at it's predictions.

Not that it prevents them from producing metric tons of it.

And why shouldn't they?

People gobble them up and never hold them accountable for getting it wrong.

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